Gifted

"Unfortunately, Gifted's cutesy classroom scenes are not quite up to the task of digging into how Mary fits in with her classmates, and the film quickly gives way to increasingly caricatured depictions..."

"The movie is a bit of a crock - a stacked-deck family drama that's all bits and pieces stuck together out of a screenwriter's handbook."

"You'll need a tissue, not a calculator, for the tender-hearted finale."

"The question at the movie's heart is: What is best for Mary? The answer Gifted chooses is predictable, but that doesn't stop the movie from messing with your tear ducts."

"What's in a child's best interest? It depends on who's answering the question. That's the crux of "Gifted," the director Marc Webb's return to small-scale features after tangling with spidey."

"It disappointingly gets tangled up in plot contrivances, and the real issue of gifted children is just a gooey fantasy."

"Not your run-of-the-mill melodrama. More like an exceptional melodrama."

"In attempting to balance the central conflict between Frank and Evelyn, a nature-vs.-nurture clash with a dash of class warfare, the movie comes up disappointingly short."

"Despite its recycled tropes, the comedy-drama manages to be both funny and moving even if its emotional manipulations are fully apparent."

"Warm and heartfelt performances from the two principals are undercut by a formula that too readily reveals the outcome. Interesting workings fail to fully add up. Must do better next term."